One man tribute to the Bard is a love's labour

Michael Pennington, one of our great old thesps, first came across Shakespeare aged 11 when he was dragged to see Macbeth at London's Old Vic. It hit him, he says, like a hammer.

Young Michael rushed home, pulled the text of Macbeth off the shelves and started to read it aloud. Before that day young Pennington had been gripped by football. Afterwards, however, he barely talked again about Tottenham Hotspur.

He has been at it pretty much ever since and calculates that he has spent 20,000 hours on stage playing Shakespeare. He has now assembled a one-man show about the Bard which skilfully mixes his life story with brief clips from some of his plays.

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It is an approachable work of literary analysis in which Mr Pennington wears his deep knowledge with light charm.

This production is not a play in any sense. Its "plot" is nothing more than an examination of the way Shakespeare started as a youthful romantic and gradually became more political, ending his creative life as a sardonic, contemplative playwright.

He was "sweet" William because he was so honey-tongued, but also because babies at that time often had a sweet substance placed on their tongues soon after birth.

It all makes for an agreeably old fashioned, bookish sort of evening which could easily qualify for

translation to BBC radio or even upmarket television.

To find Mr Pennington performing in plain black clothes, with nothing more than a wooden chair for props on a bare stage at the Arcola Theatre in North London, is somehow a very English experience.

In the U.S., an actor of his One-man-tribute-to-the-Bard is a love's labour experience would scarce consider

playing to the audience of about 25 who were at the Arcola on Tuesday night.

On the Continent, the capital's intellectuals would descend with weighty tread. But here in England it's a slightly thread-bare crowd of middle-class bumblers. They listened closely and appreciatively.

Part of the pleasure of the show is Mr Pennington's rich gravy of a voice. It is an instrument you could never

tire of hearing, being classical yet not grand, resonant but not dissolute or artsy.

He runs through some of the "throng of voices" produced by Shakespeare, from Cleopatra to the drunken prisoner Barnardine in Measure For Measure (so furious to be disturbed from his sleep and told it is time for his

execution). En route we hear how the talented young Shakespeare infuriated his rival Robert Greene, who attacked him as "an upstart crow".

Mr Pennington exercises a theory he has that Shakespeare was a libidinous travelling actor in his youth.

There is also some persuasive stuff about his later career as a theatre impresario in the London of James I, the monarch whose corrupt court was skewered in Timon Of Athens. Mr Pennington hints that Shakespeare was a Lefty. Certainly possible.

Theatre buffs, A-level English pupils, history enthusiasts, admirers of fine verse speaking: all will find plenty to admire in this assured tour of the Shakespearean estate by one of its most besotted addicts. Michael Pennington has done "sweet William" - and himself — proud.

• Sweet Williams plays at the Arcola till December 8, then goes to the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis for its U.S. premiere. The next English dates are February 4-16 at the Trafalgar Studios in the West End, with one extra performance at the new Rose Theatre in Kingston on Feb 17.